THE CHURCH-YARD.
Our dinner was really good, so were the wines; better, perhaps,
at this out-of-the-way inn, than at some of the more pretentious
hotels in Paris. The moral effect of a really good dinner is
immense--we all felt it. The serenity and goodnature that follow
are more solid and comfortable than the tumultuous benevolences
of Bacchus.
My friends were happy, therefore, and very chatty; which latter
relieved me of the trouble of talking, and prompted them to
entertain me and one another incessantly with agreeable stories
and conversation, of which, until suddenly a subject emerged,
which interested me powerfully, I confess, so much were my
thoughts engaged elsewhere, I heard next to nothing.
"Yes," said Carmaignac, continuing a conversation which had
escaped me, "there was another case, beside that Russian
nobleman, odder still. I remembered it this morning, but cannot
recall the name. He was a tenant of the very same room.
By-the-by, Monsieur, might it not be as well," he added, turning
to me, with a laugh, half joke whole earnest, as they say, "if
you were to get into another apartment, now that the house is no
longer crowded? that is, if you mean to make any stay here."
"A thousand thanks! no. I'm thinking of changing my hotel; and I
can run into town so easily at night; and though I stay here,
for this night, at least, I don't expect to vanish like those
others. But you say there is another adventure, of the same kind,
connected with the same room. Do let us hear it. But take some
wine first."
The story he told was curious.
"It happened," said Carmaignac, "as well as I recollect, before
either of the other cases. A French gentleman--I wish I could
remember his name--the son of a merchant, came to this inn (the
Dragon Volant), and was put by the landlord into the same room of
which we have been speaking. _Your_ apartment, Monsieur. He was
by no means young--past forty--and very far from good-looking.
The people here said that he was the ugliest man, and the most
good-natured, that ever lived. He played on the fiddle, sang, and
wrote poetry. His habits were odd and desultory. He would
sometimes sit all day in his room writing, singing, and
fiddling, and go out at night for a walk. An eccentric man! He
was by no means a millionaire, but he had a _modicum bonum_ you
understand--a trifle more than half a million of francs. He
consulted his stockbroker about investing this money in foreign
stocks, and drew the entire sum from his banker. You now have the
situation of affairs when the catastrophe occurred."
"Pray fill your glass," I said.
"Dutch courage, Monsieur, to face the catastrophe!" said
Whistlewick, filling his own.
"Now, that was the last that ever was heard of his money,"
resumed Carmaignac. "You shall hear about himself. The night
after this financial operation, he was seized with a poetic
frenzy; he sent for the then landlord of this house, and told him
that he long meditated an epic, and meant to commence that
night, and that he was on no account to be disturbed until nine
o'clock in the morning. He had two pairs of wax candles, a little
cold supper on a side-table, his desk open, paper enough upon it
to contain the entire Henriade, and a proportionate store of pens
and ink.
"Seated at this desk he was seen by the waiter who brought him a
cup of coffee at nine o'clock, at which time the intruder said he
was writing fast enough to set fire to the paper--that was his
phrase; he did not look up, he appeared too much engrossed. But,
when the waiter came back, half an hour afterwards, the door was
locked; and the poet, from within, answered, that he must not be
disturbed.
"Away went the _garçon_; and next morning at nine o'clock knocked
at his door, and receiving no answer, looked through the
key-hole; the lights were still burning, the window-shutters
were closed as he had left them; he renewed his knocking, knocked
louder, no answer came. He reported this continued and alarming
silence to the inn-keeper, who, finding that his guest had not
left his key in the lock, succeeded in finding another that
opened it. The candles were just giving up the ghost in their
sockets, but there was light enough to ascertain that the tenant
of the room was gone! The bed had not been disturbed; the
window-shutter was barred. He must have let himself out, and,
locking the door on the outside, put the key in his pocket, and
so made his way out of the house. Here, however, was another
difficulty, the Dragon Volant shut its doors and made all fast at
twelve o'clock; after that hour no one could leave the house,
except by obtaining the key and letting himself out, and of
necessity leaving the door unsecured, or else by collusion and
aid of some person in the house.
"Now it happened that, some time after the doors were secured, at
half-past twelve, a servant who had not been apprized of his
order to be left undisturbed, seeing a light shine through the
key-hole, knocked at the door to inquire whether the poet wanted
anything. He was very little obliged to his disturber, and
dismissed him with a renewed charge that he was not to be
interrupted again during the night. This incident established the
fact that he was in the house after the doors had been locked and
barred. The inn-keeper himself kept the keys, and swore that he
found them hung on the wall above his head, in his bed, in their
usual place, in the morning; and that nobody could have taken
them away without awakening him. That was all we could discover.
The Count de St. Alyre, to whom this house belongs, was very
active and very much chagrined. But nothing was discovered."
"And nothing heard since of the epic poet?" I asked.
"Nothing--not the slightest clue--he never turned up again. I
suppose he is dead; if he is not, he must have got into some
devilish bad scrape, of which we have heard nothing, that
compelled him to abscond with all the secresy and expedition in
his power. All that we know for certain is that, having occupied
the room in which you sleep, he vanished, nobody ever knew how,
and never was heard of since."
"You have now mentioned three cases," I said, "and all from the
same room."
"Three. Yes, all equally unintelligible. When men are murdered,
the great and immediate difficulty the assassins encounter is how
to conceal the body. It is very hard to believe that three
persons should have been consecutively murdered, in the same
room, and their bodies so effectually disposed of that no trace
of them was ever discovered."
From this we passed to other topics, and the grave Monsieur
Carmaignac amused us with a perfectly prodigious collection of
scandalous anecdote, which his opportunities in the police
department had enabled him to accumulate.
My guests happily had engagements in Paris, and left me about
ten.
I went up to my room, and looked out upon the grounds of the
Château de la Carque. The moonlight was broken by clouds, and the
view of the park in this desultory light, acquired a melancholy
and fantastic character.
The strange anecdotes recounted of the room in which I stood, by
Monsieur Carmaignac, returned vaguely upon my mind, drowning in
sudden shadows the gaiety of the more frivolous stories with
which he had followed them. I looked round me on the room that
lay in ominous gloom, with an almost disagreeable sensation. I
took my pistols now with an undefined apprehension that they
might be really needed before my return to-night. This feeling,
be it understood, in nowise chilled my ardour. Never had my
enthusiasm mounted higher. My adventure absorbed and carried me
away; but it added a strange and stern excitement to the
expedition.
I loitered for a time in my room. I had ascertained the exact
point at which the little churchyard lay. It was about a mile
away; I did not wish to reach it earlier than necessary.
I stole quietly out, and sauntered along the road to my left, and
thence entered a narrower track, still to my left, which,
skirting the park wall, and describing a circuitous route, all
the way, under grand old trees, passes the ancient cemetery. That
cemetery is embowered in trees, and occupies little more than
half an acre of ground, to the left of the road, interposing
between it and the park of the Château de la Carque.
Here, at this haunted spot, I paused and listened. The place was
utterly silent. A thick cloud had darkened the moon, so that I
could distinguish little more than the outlines of near objects,
and that vaguely enough; and sometimes, as it were, floating in
black fog, the white surface of a tombstone emerged.
Among the forms that met my eye against the iron-grey of the
horizon, were some of those shrubs or trees that grow like our
junipers, some six feet high, in form like a miniature poplar,
with the darker foliage of the yew. I do not know the name of
the plant, but I have often seen it in such funereal places.
Knowing that I was a little too early, I sat down upon the edge
of a tombstone to wait, as, for aught I knew, the beautiful
Countess might have wise reasons for not caring that I should
enter the grounds of the château earlier than she had appointed.
In the listless state induced by waiting, I sat there, with my
eyes on the object straight before me, which chanced to be that
faint black outline I have described. It was right before me,
about half-a-dozen steps away.
The moon now began to escape from under the skirt of the cloud
that had hid her face for so long; and, as the light gradually
improved, the tree on which I had been lazily staring began to
take a new shape. It was no longer a tree, but a man standing
motionless. Brighter and brighter grew the moonlight, clearer
and clearer the image became, and at last stood out perfectly
distinctly. It was Colonel Gaillarde.
Luckily, he was not looking toward me. I could only see him in
profile; but there was no mistaking the white moustache, the
_farouche_ visage, and the gaunt six-foot stature. There he was,
his shoulder toward me, listening and watching, plainly, for some
signal or person expected, straight in front of him.
If he were, by chance, to turn his eyes in my direction, I knew
that I must reckon upon an instantaneous renewal of the combat
only commenced in the hall of the Belle Etoile. In any case,
could malignant fortune have posted, at this place and hour, a
more dangerous watcher? What ecstasy to him, by a single
discovery, to hit me so hard, and blast the Countess de St.
Alyre, whom he seemed to hate.
He raised his arm; he whistled softly; I heard an answering
whistle as low; and, to my relief, the Colonel advanced in the
direction of this sound, widening the distance between us at
every step; and immediately I heard talking, but in a low and
cautious key.
I recognized, I thought, even so, the peculiar voice of
Gaillarde.
I stole softly forward in the direction in which those sounds
were audible. In doing so, I had, of course, to use the extremest
caution.
I thought I saw a hat above a jagged piece of ruined wall, and
then a second--yes, I saw two hats conversing; the voices came
from under them. They moved off, not in the direction of the
park, but of the road, and I lay along the grass, peeping over a
grave, as a skirmisher might, observing the enemy. One after the
other, the figures emerged full into view as they mounted the
stile at the road-side. The Colonel, who was last, stood on the
wall for awhile, looking about him, and then jumped down on the
road. I heard their steps and talk as they moved away together,
with their backs toward me, in the direction which led them
farther and farther from the Dragon Volant.
I waited until these sounds were quite lost in distance before I
entered the park. I followed the instructions I had received from
the Countess de St. Alyre, and made my way among brushwood and
thickets to the point nearest the ruinous temple, and crossed the
short intervening space of open ground rapidly.
I was now once more under the gigantic boughs of the old lime and
chestnut trees; softly, and with a heart throbbing fast, I
approached the little structure.
The moon was now shining steadily, pouring down its radiance on
the soft foliage, and here and there mottling the verdure under
my feet.
I reached the steps; I was among its worn marble shafts. She was
not there, nor in the inner sanctuary, the arched windows of
which were screened almost entirely by masses of ivy. The lady
had not yet arrived.